Glendale,
South Carolina

Past - Present -
Future

This web site is intended to
be a place of reunion, a place of memory and a place
of celebration of the town of Glendale and its
people. The pressures of modern life make it harder
and harder to maintain a sense of community for a
town. At the same time, the wonders of the Internet
make it possible to establish connections, share
stories and information in ways that were impossible
in days past. This web site will make it possible
for anyone having an interest or emotional tie to
Glendale to connect with others with the same
interests. We hope that this web site will be a
place to renew old friendships, discover relatives
who have passed on, meet new cousins, share news
about the community and hopefully acquire a new
appreciation for the special place that is Glendale.

All of the stories and
articles on this website are listed on the
page, Contents.They are all also listed as links in
individual articles. However, this Contents page shows
links to all of the stories in one place.

New Things Are Happening

One of the main reasons
for developing this web site is to help
publicize the new and exciting things that are
starting to happen in Glendale. Join
the new organization, the Friends
of Glendale that is helping
to bring about these changes. Click on the
link below to read full details about all the
new things that are happening in Glendale and
recent additions to this website.

Glendale
native,Dr. B.G.
Stephens has been instrumental in
helping bring about all of the positive
things that have happened to the town.
He has started a series of information
pieces about what is happening in
Glendale and its institutions. These
will be called theGlendale
Chroniclesand
the first issue has just been released.
It can be read at Chronicle 1.
Other issues will follow with the next
planned for about December 1.

The
annual Meeting and Supper for the
Glendale Community Graveyard Commitee is
held every spring. For more details see
Supper
Form. This form can be
printed out and mailed with your check
or donation if you plan to attend the
meeting.

Developments

In 2008, Glendale was
declared a Blueprint South Carolina
Community by the American
Institute of Architects. Click on this
link "Blue
Print SC Certificate" to see
this award.

Dr. Benjamin R. Dunlap, the
President of Wofford, delivered the
main address at the dedication. Click
on this link, Dedication
Speech, to read the
speech.

In
November, 2010, Wofford received
word that the Environmental Studies
building (Goodall Center) at
Glendale had achieved Platinum LEED
( Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design) certification
from the U.S. Green Building
Council. That is the Council’s
highest certification (in ascending
order: Certification, Silver
Certification, Gold Certification,
and Platinum Certification).Read about the award in the the
Spartanburg Herald.You can also read more details
about the building and the award on
the Wofford website at Goodall
Center.

The Goodall Center continues to
win honors. On March 29, 2012, the
Center received the Exemplary
Project Award from the U.S. Green
Building Council-South Carolina
Chapter. The award recognizes
outstanding projects with the
ability to inspire others to pursue
Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED)
certification. Read the full story
at Goodall
Center Award.

Webcam of Glendale
Shoals Now in Operation

In April, 2012, a live video
camera was installed with a view of
Lawson's Fork and the shoals below
the dam. This camera operates 24
hours a day and the view is
available at Lawson's Fork
Shoals Camera.

Wofford College
Wins Large Grant

Wofford's
environmental
studies program has received a
$383,000 grant from the Margaret
A. Cargill (MAC) Foundationto fund the
initiative that will bring the
college community together with
local citizens to focus on local
rivers that will include
Lawson's Fork Creek. Read full
story at Gargill
Grant.

Old Iron Bridge
in Glendale is Now Being
Restored

In
2012 it was announced that
the bridge was going to be
renovated at a cost of
$600,000. Now, on August 19,
2017, the work has
actually started. You can
read the details and see
photos at Glendale
Bridge Work Is Underway.
(Read the original
announcement in the
Spartanburg Herald online
site at Glendale
Bridge Renovation.)

A Timeline describing the
important steps and milestones of
all the new developments at Glendale
has been prepared by Dr. B. G.
Stephens. Click on this link, Timeline,
to read it.

Availability
of reports, photos etc.
relating to Glendale

Dr. B. G.
Stephens is a native of Glendale and
has been very active in the Friends
of Glendale organization
and assisting with the various
exciting projects that are happening
with the the community. He has
accumulated a variety of material that
is pertinent to Glendale and the
new projects and has arranged to make
the material available on this web
site. You can see a list of the
material he has and gain access to it
through links on the page, Glendale
Reports.

Pacolet
High School Memorial Reading Garden

An effort was underway to establish
a Pacolet High School Memorial Reading
Garden at the Pacolet Library. This
effort was successful and the reading
Garden will become a reality. To learn
more click on Reading
Garden.

United States
Department of Agriculture Funds
Development Study

The United States
Department of Agriculture-Rural Development
(USDA-RD) awarded Federal stimulus money in
the amount of $60,000 to The Town of Pacolet
and Glendale for an economic, educational and
recreational feasibility study of the Lawson’s
Fork Creek—Pacolet River Corridor that
connects the two former textile villages in
Spartanburg County. The purpose of the
feasibility study is to determine what
economic and recreational opportunities can be
realized by attracting the funds needed to
bring to maturity and fruition the projects
identified through the study.

Iron tools and other
implements were badly needed by the new
settlers. Fortunately, all of the
necessary parts of the iron making process
were available at the place that was to
eventually become the town of Glendale.
There was water power to turn a water
wheel and power a bellows to operate the
furnace. There was iron ore along the
banks of the creek. There was limestone
available for the digging and there was a
vast number of trees to be turned into
charcoal. The iron industry was to be very
important in the history of Glendale.
Click on the link below to read more
details about the iron industry and how it
affected the history of Glendale.

Early Roads to Glendale

The iron works
was served by one of the earliest
roads in all of Upstate South
Carolina. It was called the "Georgia
Road". It was very important during
colonial and the Revolutionary War
Era and was important to the
development of the town. Some of it
is still in use today. Click on the
followng link for more information.

The Coming of the Textile Mill

Lawson's Fork
Creek was not the site of the first
textile mills in Spartanburg County.
The first mills in the Upcountry
were built on the waters of the Tyger
River between 1816 and 1818 by two
groups of new Englanders. Both of
these mills burned but were rebuilt.
One group ceased operation in 1826,
the other group continued to
operate small textile mills for many
years. What was special about
the textile mill built, at what was to
become Glendale, was the size of the
operation. Around 1832, Dr. James
Bivings came from Lincolnton, NC to
build and start what became known as
the Bivingsville Cotton Factory.
Click on the following links for full
information about the origin and
operation of the textile mill at
Glendale.

In March of
2004, there was a major fire that
destroyed most of the former
Glendale mill. Mr. Terry
Gilmer of Glendale photographed
the fire as it was happening. He
has been kind enough to make his
photographs availble to us to use
on this website. Some of his
photographs can be seen on the
following link. Glendale Mill
Fire.

The
factories at Bivingsvillewere very important not
only to the folks that worked
there but to the farmers and
other people who lived in the
Spartanburg vicinity. This is
shown in a journal kept over a
15 year period by David G.
Harris around the time of the
Civil War. He was a farmer who
lived near the Pauline
community, over eight miles
from Bivingsville.
Click on the following link to
read more about this.

The Families of Glendale

Starting with
the Iron
Worksand
continuing on with the coming of the
Bivings
textile milland on
down to recent times,Glendale
has been a source of jobs
and employment. To many folks over
the last 200 years,Glendale
was almost like the
"Promised Land". In the early
1900's, it was a place where you
could work and make cash money on a
regular basis. Your family and
children had more security than in a
life of farming. Some families that
found work already lived nearby. For
the most part, they gave up full
time farming to work in the new
industries. Other families came from
all over the Upstate of South
Carolina and down from the mountains
of North Carolina. They all had a
common story - they needed work and
they heard that jobs could be found
at Bivingsvilleor later Glendale.
They packed up their belongings and
moved to the mill alongside Lawson's
Forkto start a new
life. Almost all of the family,
including the children, worked in
the mill. For a long time, the work
schedule was 12 hours a day and a
half day on Saturday.

By our modern standards, this was a
hard life. However, our ancestors
must have preferred it to the never
ending toil and uncertain conditions
of farming. Most that came to the
mills stayed to raise their families
there.

There are many residents or former
residents whose families have been
associated with Glendale
for over a hundred years. Behind
each of these families there is a
wonderful story of how they came to
Glendale,
their successes and trials and
failures. To read some of these
family stories, click on the link
below.

We
earnestly solicit you to send us your family's
story and how it is connected to the story of
Glendale. We welcome memories, photographs,
and incidents that can be added to the
Glendale story. We are particularly interested
in how your family came to be connected to
Glendale. Also, we encourage you to share the
biography of someone in your family to tell
their individual story. Please send to Glendale
Family Stories .

Contributions from Rev. Clarence
Crocker and a Glendale Household Listing

Clarence Crocker
was born in Glendale. He was the Post Master and
held several positions with the mill including
Manager of the Company Store. He has used his broad
knowledge of the people living in Glendale over the
years to put together a fascinating household
listing of these folks. You can read this extensive
listing at Glendale
Households. If you or your family lived
in Glendale since 1920 and were associated with the
mill, it is very likely that your names will be on
this list. Rev. Crocker has also
furnished approximately 215 interesting articles for
use in this website.Rev.
Crocker's work biography and a list of the articles
he has supplied to us can be read at Rev. Crocker's
Biography.

His very latest effort has been to compile an
Index of the Black families living in Glendale at
the time of the 1940 Federal Census. Read this atBlack Families
in Glendale.

It is amazing how quickly our lives
have changed from a rural pattern to the one we
have today. The pace of technical change is so
fast that we sometimes have trouble keeping up
with it. We take things for granted in
communications, travel, medicine, etc. that our
ancestors would see almost as miracles. For the
most part, these changes have occurred in barely
one or two generations. Most children today,
live in a vastly different world than the one
their grandparents lived in at their age. Rev.
Crocker was born and raised on a small farm a
short distance away from the Glendale mill
village He has written a very interesting story
about growing up on the farm and has allowed us
to use it on this website. His story
points out how much our world has changed. Read
his story at Growing
Up on a Farm in Glendale.

Life in the Mill Village

People have
lived in the Glendale mill village
from about 1835 until the present,
a period of over 170 years.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of
people have lived, been born,
died, or otherwise been involved
with the village at Glendale. The
village and its institutions and
facilities have been very
important in the lives of people
in the past and continue to be so
to this day. Click on the the
following links to learn more
about life in Glendale and
the many things involved.

All of the
stories and articles on this website are
listed on the page, Contents.They are all also listed as links in
individual articles. However, this Contents
page shows links to all of the stories
in one place.

Come
Visit Glendale. Come to the Glendale
Outdoor Leadership Schooland
see all of the activities they
offer. See the Goodall
Environmental Studies Centerthat is on the forefront of
environmental education in this
country. Walk the trails and feel
the presence of the past. See and
photograph Lawson's Fork Creek and
historic Glendale Shoals up close.
Visit Glendale where "The past is
not even past." For directions and a
map, click on "Visit
Glendale."

This web
site has been started as a public service to
share the story of Glendale. The web master
and person to contact about putting
information on the web site is Mary McKinney
Teaster. Contact her at:marylee@glendalesc.comor by telephone at (843) 873-8117.See
more information about Mary and her Glendale
connection at Mary
McKinney Teaster.

Help Preserve Our Textile Heritage

Join the efforts of The Textile Heritage
Center. This organization is committed to
creating greater awareness of the
contributions made by Southern cotton mill
people. Their current publication of "The
Bobbin and Shuttle" has two stories about
Glendale. Information about joining their
organization and buying a copy of the
Bobbin and Shuttle is on their website at:http://www.textileheritage.org
Cliffside Mill in North Carolina was much
like Glendale. Residents have started a
fascinating website to tell the story of
their people, town and their past. The
site has movies taken in 1937 and 1940.
These movies tell an intimate story of the
community and the people as they
went about their lives. Although taken at
Cliffside, life in Glendale was very
similar. The web site is:http://remembercliffside.com/

Many of the new ventures being undertaken
by Glendale are being done in partnership
with Pacolet, our nearby, sister town.
Pacolet opened its new, long awaited
Museum on October 18. Pacolet has a web
site at:http://www.townofpacolet.com/.

Junior History Press now also sponsors a
new site dedicated to preserving the
memories of the Pacolet area. It is
http://pacoletmemories.com.TheStartex/Tucapau Historical
Society has an interesting website
relating to the Startex mill and community
in South Carolina. It is : http://www.startex.org/history.htm

The City and County of Greenville, SC
were long one of the centers of textile
production in all of the South. They are
in the forefront of preseving our textile
heritage. Visit their interesting web site
at:http://scmillhills.com/Links.aspx

We were contacted by Peter Metzke
in Melbourne, Australia. He had very kind
words about the Glendale website. He has
started a website about Startex and
Tucapau from "Down Under". It is :http://home.iprimus.com.au/metzke/tucapau.html